The emergence of electronic commerce has revolutionized the processing of transactions between retailers and consumers. What some believe to be advantages of retail-based e-commerce transactions, such as the elimination of person-to-person contact, are undermined by the need to provide personal and private information that would otherwise be unnecessary in conventional retail-based transactions.
In an Internet-based transaction, customers must provide retailers with information, such as the customer's address, phone number, and credit card information in order to have goods delivered. Although this information is essential to the completion of an Internet-based transaction, this information is useful by retailers in other applications, as well. For example, a buyer's personal information is often used on e-commerce auction websites for the purpose of providing a seller reasonable assurance that a sale will be made, and that a buyer's inquiry is not merely frivolous. This process encourages sellers to register their information on the particular website.
In these types of applications, however, the dissemination of personal information is not essential to the base sales transaction. As a result, the dissemination of this information should be much more restricted. In eBay.com's auction website, for example, both buyers and sellers must register their information with the website in order to participate in an auction. In an eBay.com auction, any registered user (buyer or seller) can request contact information of another registered user (buyer or seller). When this information is requested, eBay.com sends the name, city, state, country, zip code, and phone number of the other user. The information is taken from information that the user provides when he or she registers. For example, the user's name, city, state, country, zip code, and phone number are taken directly from the name, city, state, country, zip code, and phone number fields provided on the website's registration page.
Although the user's mailing address is not provided (for security reasons), it does not give the user the choice to opt out of providing the information, or of providing alternate information. Currently, the user must provide the information, or lose the right to participate in auctions.